Dreaming with Elsa (En, Sp, Fr, It, Ge)

[tlaero]

That's an interesting idea, Iksanabot. The first erotic game I ever stumbled across was Akina, and I spent some time at one point coding things to make that sort of gameplay possible. I wonder though if either what you're describing or what I was doing in my Akina homage actually fits into one of these sorts of games. What you're describing requires an amount of mouse dexterity and timing, but everything else that happens in our games are unlimited time decisions with only the most basic mouse control needed. I could see players get half an hour into the game and suddenly say, "Wait a minute. What's this???" That's effectively what happened in CfK, and I got a fair amount of feedback that they didn't like it (even though there were enough extra points around that they could skip the minigames and still get the best ending).

It seems like you'd be better with a game where that kind of gameplay is the primary interaction model. In Akina, it was the whole game. And, in Shark's games, all of the interaction is similar to what you're describing. It'd be totally appropriate to do what you're describing in either of those sorts of games. Less so in the kinds of games that you and I have made so far.

That said, yeah, the code is nontrivial, but quite doable.

Tlaero

[redle]

@iksanabot
Would agree with tlaero's comment that games that alternate between live action and turn based mechanics run the very real risk of alienating both types of players.

As for enhancing the feeling of participation, for me at least, I find those types of mechanics do the exact opposite. If the movements/controls are anything but the absolute minimalistic/mundane motions, I find that I actually need to concentrate on what I'm doing to be successful. My focus narrows such that I only pay attention to the mouse and the small group of pixels where my cursor is. I end up totally ignoring/missing the entire sex scene (or I pay attention to the sex scene and end up failing).

Also, when Shark, Pusooy, or Arnii have made use of a controlled motion during a sex scene (which all have), I have generally found it difficult to actually figure out what is considered the correct movement or timing. I've always managed to get through, but I wouldn't call it a smooth victory.

(and I realize this is rather off topic for the thread, but I'm taking tlaero's request for iksanabot's info and also replying to it as an okay... but I'm limiting my comments to this one post)

[Squeeky]

.....
Also, when Shark, Pusooy, or Arnii have made use of a controlled motion during a sex scene (which all have), I have generally found it difficult to actually figure out what is considered the correct movement or timing. I've always managed to get through, but I wouldn't call it a smooth victory.
....

Yes, this is off-topic too. I have been in positions where I missed the impact of a scene due to concentrated focus upon mouse motion. I wonder though, with regard to Shark experiences if that is really the case. Please suggest that to me in PM rather than clutter this thread.

[fatquack]

Great game, but now I am not dreaming with Elsa but dreaming of Chloe

[Skelaturi]

Great game, but now I am not dreaming with Elsa but dreaming of Chloe

same

dissapointed Chloe the bad girl, well not thats she is a bad girl but a bad girl. Well those who played know what i mean. Personally hoping too see Chloe's return

[Vitu]

Great game, but now I am not dreaming with Elsa but dreaming of Chloe

You did find the secret ending with Cloe, right?

[Skelaturi]

Great game, but now I am not dreaming with Elsa but dreaming of Chloe

You did find the secret ending with Cloe, right?

romantic, lust and confusing path. Took some time but got it. And yes also all secrets/achievements

[tlaero]

Don't worry folks. You're not far off topic and you're talking about things that I brought up or asked about. It's all good.

Tlaero

[fatquack]

Great game, but now I am not dreaming with Elsa but dreaming of Chloe

You did find the secret ending with Cloe, right?

Of course, that's why I am now dreaming of her.

[iksanabot]

That's an interesting idea, Iksanabot. The first erotic game I ever stumbled across was Akina, and I spent some time at one point coding things to make that sort of gameplay possible. I wonder though if either what you're describing or what I was doing in my Akina homage actually fits into one of these sorts of games. What you're describing requires an amount of mouse dexterity and timing, but everything else that happens in our games are unlimited time decisions with only the most basic mouse control needed. I could see players get half an hour into the game and suddenly say, "Wait a minute. What's this???" That's effectively what happened in CfK, and I got a fair amount of feedback that they didn't like it (even though there were enough extra points around that they could skip the minigames and still get the best ending).

It seems like you'd be better with a game where that kind of gameplay is the primary interaction model. In Akina, it was the whole game. And, in Shark's games, all of the interaction is similar to what you're describing. It'd be totally appropriate to do what you're describing in either of those sorts of games. Less so in the kinds of games that you and I have made so far.

That said, yeah, the code is nontrivial, but quite doable.

Tlaero

@ Tlaero and @ redle CC'd


I see your point, and I agree to an extent, but with great respect for your intelligence, talent and experience, I do disagree in some ways. For example, when I was writing Seducing the Throne/Romancing the Throne LOP was getting feedback on the blog that people didn't like how we had taken some of the sex game play mechanics out of the games that were coming out around then (I guess this was over year ago). I remember it specifically, because I invented a whole bunch of new mechanisms to put in the game, in reaction to the feedback (I'm not sure if Leo will implement them or not). So there are definitely players out there that really like moving their mouse to participate in sex. In fact, the whole reason I found Shark's lagoon in the first place was because a friend just off-offhandedly mentioned to me that there was this really hot sex scene in a video game called "God of War" (I never played it but I'm sure many here have) where you had to hit the buttons fast enough to make the Goddess have an orgasm. He said it was hilarious, how hard he was working on those buttons. I googled "video game sex" at some point after that to see what he was talking about, and landed at Shark's. Anyway, the point is, this guy was SO engaged in pressing a button, because he wanted to get a video game character off. I am looking for a mechanic/context that maximizes that feeling/experience for the player.

But I understand that it can disrupt the pace of a game. i think it was ideal in LwT for two reasons. One, in LwT you can start having sex almost immediately with Tracy (I think by day 3 or 4 if you do the right things). So in a game like that, where the sex is all through it, then the game mechanic can be part of the pacing all the way through and doesn't seems like such an abrupt change from the decision-point gaming that compliments it. (That was a much-deliberated aspect of LwT, by the way, I wanted the player to be able to have sex throughout the game instead of just at the end. I still try to make my games like that, though Seducing the Throne takes a little more time). The second reason is that all the game mechanics in LwT were about building stats, and the sex mechanic was a continuation of that theme: performing well at sex built affection. But of course your games are not stats builders, and so the method wouldn't be a natural continuation of the rest of the game play, but I still do think that you could use it in the same way, awarding points for good sex. I think the critical aspect, for your style of games, would be having it be a consistent part of the game all the way through, but that requires a story that has sex all the way through - Living with Keeley would work like that, I think.

And for Redle, I do agree that the mechanic has to be implemented very well for it to really contribute to the game experience instead of take away from it. I don't want to have to focus on a non-sex part of the screen, watching a bar rise on in the corner, nor do I want the sex obscured by a game-play graphic appearing over top of it. But what I described would not be either of those. The cursor disappears and you control the position of the man's hips. The animation would have to include a lot of images, say 10 frames following the best path of the man's hips as he thrusts into the woman, and then additional frames away from the direct line, so that the player can see when his/her movements are getting sloppy. If he/she strays too far off the optimum path, the cursor appears but the animation stays in the last position he/she was in so that he/she has a chance to correct and get back on the right path. If it goes further off the path, the animation gets dropped. All the while, the player is only focused on the actual movements that go with sex. And even if you had a heart beating at the side to set a rhythm, the players would still have to focus on the sex movements to perform, relying on his/her peripheral vision to catch the rhythm.

To do it really well would require a lot of images per animation, and some slick coding that really optimized responsiveness, but if i had 2 million dollars to make a game ( anyone?), I'd do it that way.

[Mortze]

@Tlaero, iksanabot, redle and evryone else interested,

There is a saying in my country (don't know if that aplies in english) that says that You can't both please greeks and trojans.
This question you are debating is a good one. But we must first agree that there are players that like to emerse themselves in the sex scene, and others that like puzzels, challenges, etc. There may be some that are a mix of the two but I believe them to be a minority. Those who like challenges, puzzles have plenty of games outhere for them, like LOP games, Pusooy's, and others, with progress bars, stats, paths to follow with the mouse, etc. For the others there are games without or little interactivity.

The issue is, and I speak for myself here, games with bars, stats, etc, take you away from the sex scene imersion, you loose your focus, and have to concentrate on 2 very diferent things regarding our physicall, emotional stimuli (inside the brain or whatever). You can't just get excited with a stimuli (visual, audio, etc) and at the same time pay attention to a bar progress, keep focus on your mouse movements. What you iksanobot desire to do is remarkable but I think you loose your point when you suggest that when the player does the mouvment wrong the mouse appears and he has to place it in the right place. Here you have a focus exterior to the sex scene that appears.

What I'd suggest, and I do so regardless of any coding dificulty or impossibility, because I know bullocks of it, is that at the begining of your interactive sex scene the player has to place the mouse in a certain place (hips, tongue, hand), and once done the mouse cursor disapears for good, it stays there locked the entire scene.
The interactivity would be around the mouse movement, that will move the attached body part, and such mouvmenet would have to obby certain speed, strenght, direction. All stats and parameters would be off stage, outside the player perception, in code.
The progress of the sexual interactivity would be shown like in real life, by the parter reaction, may it be diferent sounds, a rubor on her face, her eyes getting closed or oppened, her body following your movement, a nipple getting hard. If done right the scene will move on. If not it stays the same. A game hint might appear after a certain time of faillure like "Be gentle", or a dialogue of her asking to go harder or deeper. Aditionaly, for players who don't like this kind of interactivity an option to skip that part could be present. They would receive less points that they would have to catch up further in the game, or the Hard difficulty would maybe not allow to skip it.

[LRM]

@ Mortze; talented and wise.
@ Lady T and you; How would you/others feel about "You've achieved ending x of y, We wrote this with the best ending as z". X and y are just numbers. Z should probably have a name (Cosmic Orgasms ) and IMO be ending 1. SE Asia did that to me. #1 was best and #10 worst. If really bad you might hear "sip loi" 10,000 if memory serves.
Lou

[redle]

@Mortze regarding greeks and trojans, the base concept is understood and applies well enough. It's a good enough saying to explain my statement about potentially alienating both types of players.

@iksanabot the example of the button-mashing avoids a big part of the argument against. To hit the same button over and over as fast as I can with no rhythm to match nor pattern nor change... that's something I can relegate to background processes in my body and brain. I could read every post in this message board all while tapping a button repeatedly (I might read a little slower and tap a little slower because of the simultaneous activity, but I could do it). Ask me to move my mouse in a specific pattern and to match a specific rhythm and read posts, and my movements will quickly get completely out of sync and I will fail (I will need to keep "checking back in" on the mouse movement to correct my position and timing, all the while ignoring the posts). Even with the button-mashing though, if I really had to go fast I would end up completely ignoring the game and focus all my attention on my movement and the button.

None of this is to say that a live-action game can't be fun. There are games out there like sexy tetris or move the sexy waitress right and left to catch falling beer in her mug. These games can be great. And sure, if a few tits and asses show up from time to time to make it an adult game, so much the better. Same with some of Leo's games. I believe a few had a circle that moved across various areas of a woman's body and the player needed to try to keep the mouse cursor inside the circle to progress. As I said, these games can certainly be fun, but while I'm doing this dexterous feat, my attention is on the feat itself, not on the woman or the sex. Some of Leo's fans have complained (or requested its return) about the lack of game play during sex not because it enhances the sex, but because real-time games are the types of games they enjoy. The more difficult or coordinated the task, the less time/attention I have left to look at the picture or think about the sex.

As for talking about games like LwT versus DwE simply from a points perspective, LwT has no real progression cap or controlled point rate. To put in a variable point system where a player picks up a few extra points or not doesn't matter much. When a player gains 3 extra points out of their current 500, the percentage is small enough that those points are irrelevant, and it's easy to make points in other ways. In DwE every single point is quite important. The point is the specific words used to make the story. If one is going down the romantic path and suddenly picked up 3 bonus points and could suddenly be a jerk for 3 conversations in a row and stay equal with the player who didn't get those points, the story wouldn't fit nearly so well.

I know, I said I was limiting it to that single post, even with tlaero adding her official okay. So allow me to actually drift on topic for a bit.

@tlaero
You asked about your interactive controls within DwE. For me, and using a mouse, I felt like the circling movement was far too large. I had to circle quite close to the bounds of the flash player instead of the actual location that was supposedly receiving the attention. The up-down and side-to-side didn't feel like it had the same overly large movement requirement (although maybe they did to an extent, but my perception was shifted after doing the circling first), at least partly because the mouse actually passed through the correct area during these paths, even if they continued beyond.

It took me a little bit to actually realize that feedback was appearing in the text. I assumed I was doing things correctly and just needed to continue for a bit, when my peripheral vision finally caught 3 or 4 or how ever many, "hey, you're doing it wrong" comments already repeated in the script. It is another example of, I must move my mouse in one area of the screen while I watch a different area of the screen for feedback, which isn't the best of mechanics.

Once I understood what made movements actually successful, I'll admit that they seemed forgiving enough that I could completely ignore the feedback and just do the task (it's only by ignoring the feedback that the player can actually pay attention to the scene itself). Of course the task changes pretty quickly if it is being done correctly, so the player is once again forced to watch the feedback instead of watching the scene, or he stops progressing again.

The only scene where I actually participated in the interaction was the one scene that started us in that mode. All the scenes that were set to animate on their own by default, I happily let progress by themselves (although I'll admit that I thought switching to manual was just going to have me click through each frame of the animation or some such rather than a "game" of sorts).

Had the cues been verbal (for direction changes as well as when/how to correct faulty movement), I could have paid attention to the scene the whole time. The movements, as I stated, were forgiving enough that they didn't require high concentration. Then it might have worked really well. While I think verbal cues would have helped it, I'm not claiming they're the only solution. The point is, the visual aspect of the scene is both where you want the player to be looking and where the player wants to be looking. So the key is to tell him what he needs to know without making him change his visual point of reference. Either way though, I was more than happy to simply read the story and watch the animations.

[jardel77]

@Tlaero, iksanabot, redle and evryone else interested,

There is a saying in my country (don't know if that aplies in english) that says that You can't both please greeks and trojans.
This question you are debating is a good one. But we must first agree that there are players that like to emerse themselves in the sex scene, and others that like puzzels, challenges, etc. There may be some that are a mix of the two but I believe them to be a minority. Those who like challenges, puzzles have plenty of games outhere for them, like LOP games, Pusooy's, and others, with progress bars, stats, paths to follow with the mouse, etc. For the others there are games without or little interactivity.

The issue is, and I speak for myself here, games with bars, stats, etc, take you away from the sex scene imersion, you loose your focus, and have to concentrate on 2 very diferent things regarding our physicall, emotional stimuli (inside the brain or whatever). You can't just get excited with a stimuli (visual, audio, etc) and at the same time pay attention to a bar progress, keep focus on your mouse movements. What you iksanobot desire to do is remarkable but I think you loose your point when you suggest that when the player does the mouvment wrong the mouse appears and he has to place it in the right place. Here you have a focus exterior to the sex scene that appears.

What I'd suggest, and I do so regardless of any coding dificulty or impossibility, because I know bullocks of it, is that at the begining of your interactive sex scene the player has to place the mouse in a certain place (hips, tongue, hand), and once done the mouse cursor disapears for good, it stays there locked the entire scene.
The interactivity would be around the mouse movement, that will move the attached body part, and such mouvmenet would have to obby certain speed, strenght, direction. All stats and parameters would be off stage, outside the player perception, in code.
The progress of the sexual interactivity would be shown like in real life, by the parter reaction, may it be diferent sounds, a rubor on her face, her eyes getting closed or oppened, her body following your movement, a nipple getting hard. If done right the scene will move on. If not it stays the same. A game hint might appear after a certain time of faillure like "Be gentle", or a dialogue of her asking to go harder or deeper. Aditionaly, for players who don't like this kind of interactivity an option to skip that part could be present. They would receive less points that they would have to catch up further in the game, or the Hard difficulty would maybe not allow to skip it.

Hi Mortze,

Where are you from? We have the same saying in Portugal.

I agree with you and I was just stating that if some things were just a bit different the game would probably be perfect, in my opinion. Still it's an epic game and like all Tlaero's they are in my list of favourites and hope to see much more and from you too from now on.

Keep up with the great work and amaze us all!

Just one quick note for you and Tlaero. This is a huge community that plays these kind of games and likes them so they comment and suggest. Of course you can't please 100% everyone but no one can and, the way I see it, this is a good thing because all these comments give you ideas and pointers on how to improve sometimes and what to aim for in some situations (everybody's aiming for that all the time) and it's also because you and Tlaero reply and actually consider some of the thoughts and ideas here which is pretty rare and amazing too.

So that's why you guys get all of these replies but don't take them personal because if people didn't like the games and this particular game too, they wouldn't be here =)

[Mortze]

@Jardel, I will not tell you where I am from, I'll just hint that, as a great football manager once said, making this games for me is "peaners". (not at all, but Jardel will get it).

ust one quick note for you and Tlaero. This is a huge community that plays these kind of games and likes them so they comment and suggest. Of course you can't please 100% everyone but no one can and, the way I see it, this is a good thing because all these comments give you ideas and pointers on how to improve sometimes and what to aim for in some situations (everybody's aiming for that all the time) and it's also because you and Tlaero reply and actually consider some of the thoughts and ideas here which is pretty rare and amazing too.

So that's why you guys get all of these replies but don't take them personal because if people didn't like the games and this particular game too, they wouldn't be here =)

The way I see it, constructive critics are the best way to improve yourself. If you turn away from your public's opinion you will end in making stories only for you.
Although I think that, if you can't please everybody try at least to enjoy youself in what you do. If A says he prefers blonds and B says brunettes then I'll choose myself.
In the end, talking about your work, praising it or saying bad things is better than pure ignorance. So thank you all for taking your time to tell your opinions first, and to show your apreciation and support second. That's what keep us doing what we do.